Why are conservative Catholics so opposed to and angry about the changes that resulted from Vatican II?

Answer 1

Vatican II changed a lot of the customs and traditions of the Catholic Church and its faithful. For example, prior to Vatican II, all masses had to be said in Latin and meat was forbidden to eat on every Friday around the year. When Vatican II met, a lot of more liberal priests, bishops, and cardinals influenced its direction. To some, the outcomes of Vatican II seemed to have 'watered down' the devotion that the common Catholic needed to have to be considered a member of the Church of Christ. Even though Vatican II is now nearly 50 years ended, there remain a few Catholics who are opposed to these changes, even angry to the point of leaving the Church claiming that the Church is no longer in union with Christ. Of course, this can never be true, as the Holy Spirit guides the Church and it carefully guided the Church through Vatican II and will continue to do so in trust and faith through the ages to come.

Catholic AnswerI don't think "conservative" Catholics are so opposed to and angry about the changes that Vatican Council II asked for, they are angry and opposed to the changes that were made in the name of Vatican Council II but were not actually made. For instance, Vatican Council II called for more of the people's language in the Mass for the readings and such so that the people could understand them. However, they were VERY insistent that Latin remains as the language of the Church and of the Mass. In other words, Vatican Council II never imagined that the entire Mass would be in the language of the people, and specifically said this was not to happen.

After any great Ecumenical Council there is always a lot of upheaval. The Council of Trent in the sixteenth century called for the abolition of any liturgy that was not at least two centuries old. There were some people who had their own form of the Mass for four or five generations who lost it due to this. There were many other changes that really upset a lot of people back then, we all get used to things and "things" had not changed much in the last five hundred years. This Council had a lot of additional problems because the 1960's happened at the same time, the devil always uses these times of trouble to instigate people to leave the Church and the Sacraments, knowing that it really doesn't matter the reason, if he can separate them from the Church that Jesus Christ founded, he has won, and we have lost.

Real conservative Catholics are those who realize that as long as they remain in communion with the successor of St. Peter, the vicar of Christ, and listen to him, they will be alright. Real conservative Catholics remain humble and obedient and try to conform their lives to Christ's and not worry about what the Bishops are doing. We will be judged by how we treated other people, if we treated them as our brothers in Christ, we will not be judged by whether the Bishop made the right decision in allowing whatever nonsense is current this year or not.